AutomationML: From data exchange to system planning and simulation

Abstract

The planning, testing and integration of modern automation systems is becoming more and more a bottleneck in the construction of new production facilities. This is due to the facts that plants grow in complexity and that modern automation systems are highly distributed and comprise complex components. To cope with these challenges and to guarantee short implementation times and a small number of errors for the automation systems, modern development processes are needed. Such modern processes can be reduced to four main aspects: (i) A seamless process with corresponding seamless tools, (ii) a high level of model reuse and adaptability, (iii) executable models and early tests, and (iv) a system-wide planing process of the distributed system. Therefore, the established tool landscape with its specialized tools for each discipline of engineering has difficulties to keep up with these trends. The approach presented in this paper implements a development process including the aspects (i) - (iv) using the new data exchange format AutomationML. AutomationML serves as an enabling technology and has the potential to change future development processes and may trigger the development of new, better integrated tools.(1

Current Standards Landscape for Smart Manufacturing Systems

“…IEC 62714, AutomationML, interconnects engineering tools from different disciplines, e.g., mechanical plant engineering, electrical design, process engineering, process control engineering, HMI development, PLC programming, and robotic programming, etc. [12]. AutomationML incorporates different standards through strongly typed links across the formats including CAEX (IEC 62424) for properties and relations of objects in their hierarchical structure, COLLADA for Graphical attributes, and Kinematics and PLCopen XML for logic items.…”

Agent-based reconfiguration in a micro-flow production cell

“…The part of the data model containing the description of the topology of the micro flow cell (see Figure 8) results in an AML file. AML is a XML-based data format built upon other well established, open standards spanning several engineering areas, e.g., the Computer Aided Engineering Exchange (CAEX) that serves as the basis of hierarchical plant structures aiming at interconnecting them [13]. In this AML file, the Instance Hierarchy comprises the topology of the cell, being built by adding the "elements" from the System unit class, which contains all the needed elements to describe the micro-flow cell.…”

System modeling based on machine learning for anomaly detection and predictive maintenance in industrial plants

“…Ultimately, it is also possible to connect a real control to a simulated system in a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation, thus enabling examination of the real control prior to commissioning. Further details on the inITial project can be found in [8], [9].…”